African press review 25 January 2018

President Weah's justice nominee exposes rocky ride to picking his cabinet while Nigerian Funai herdsmen raze multi-million Naira farm.

We begin in Liberia where the papers are watching the first steps of President George Weah, as he prepares to deliver his maiden address to Parliament on Monday.

The Daily Observer says his first test will be the appointment of public officials. The paper says the president's nominee for the Justice portfolio, Charles Gibson is already causing controversy.

The publication claims that Gibson will have to first clear his name before dreaming of becoming the man who will help the new Liberian leader fight endemic and rampant corruption.

The Observer reports that the Charles Gibson who is a Councilor is suspended from practicing law in Liberia by the Supreme Court because he reportedly duped one of his clients, of US$25,400.

Meanwhile, in Kenya, the Standard exposes one of the realities of misplaced priorities by African governments. It is the story of a digital learning programme, at a beneficiary school in West Pokot that has no basic learning amenities.

According to the paper, the primary School in Pokot South constituency has laptops and electricity but lacks essential facilities like desks, permanent buildings and toilets. The head teacher of the school told the newspaper that he received 36 laptops, but pupils were not using them since they did not have proper classrooms.

In Nigeria, Vanguard leads with the unbelievable story that Fulani herdsmen invaded a four-hectare cassava farm in the Ogun State local government area of Papalanto, destroying farm produce worth N6.8 million, on Wednesday after 4 of their cows went missing.

According to the newspaper, the herdsmen also inflicted machete cuts on one of the farm workers, who is now in the hospital. President Buhari's government has come under strong criticism from civil society groups across the country for not cracking down on Fulani herdsmen at the center of deadly clashes over grazing land for their cattle.

And in South Africa, Mail and Guardian relays a warning from activists that the government may have invested R127-million (8.5 million euros) on a female condom no one wanted and could be on the verge of doing it again.

According to the newspaper, the country home to one of the largest female condom programmes in the world, citing research published in the 2017 by the South African Health Review. It claims that the health department should be commended for surpassing its own target of 25-million annually in 2015.

Yet as it observes, serious questions remain about how much communities know about condom’s features, benefits and potential for pleasure and whether the new contract for female condoms will fall victim to the same failings as its predecessor.